Welcome to our new series, Beyond The Chair™, where we discuss issues facing today’s practice owner, and how to stay competitive in your market. Our discussion this week focuses on the Darkside of Dentistry (Part 2 of 3) .

This week, here’s what you’ll learn:

Why you have a moral and ethical obligation to serve as many patients as possible

Why just “being a good dentist” will never bring you the patient load you desire, anddeserve ….and you’re doing yourself a disservice by not exploring more modern marketing channels

Why relying on one marketing channel, (hint: referrals or a website) can be a death sentence for your practice

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Benjamin: There is a direct response marketer who is very big in the 70s and 80s named Jay Abraham, you’ve heard me talk about him a little bit and he has a talking point or a strategy called the Theory of Preeminence. And the theory, I was really taken by this, the theory behind it is that you as a service provider, it’s almost like being a fiduciary and having a legal responsibility to give your clients the highest and best advice you can to help their situation.

And so, as a doctor, you can think of yourself as this service provider that you are morally obligated in a sense to tell these people what’s going on in your mouth and that is part of marketing and selling, is that if you don’t do that you’re not serving them, you’re not serving your community and so you are morally obligated to market to them, to sell to them and so it is again part of that mindset shift, it’s actually a really great theory because it helps position you as really the expert in the industry.

Graig: And I think that’s important because you know, when you look at you know, the very successful practices, you have really good dentists working for them, they are helping their community, they are helping a large number of patients that they can, they all have education based marketing and selling systems that work for them every single month, because they understand that without it they can’t help as many people and I think that’s sort of where that fine line is.

I mean, we’re blessed enough to live in a country where we can do marketing and we can sell, because there are other places in this world where the dental industry, they’re not allowed to do a lot of marketing. Here in the United States, I mean fortunately you know we’re blessed to have the ability to do so, so we can educate the most amount of people, we can help tons and tons of people.

But you know this adage of “selling is bad, marketing is bad and you really just, all you need to do is ‘be a good dentist’” and that is a very bad strategy to have because you just limiting the amount of money you can make in your business and the amount of people that you can help, and it’s more than just your patients you’re helping too.

I mean, think about it, I mean you have employees, and you have staff, and your family that rely on you to provide for them, marketing selling is that vehicle, that brings in that revenue that allows them to live their lives as well.

So you know, it’s a lot to that you know, it’s a deep topic and I think that old school has it all and they MBA sort of have their hand in the honey pot on that one too, because they don’t tell you when you’re in school that you’re going to have to sell yourself, they tell you just be a really good dentist and people will come.

We’ve heard the horror stories, right? Some comes out of dental school with a boat load of debt. They take out an S.B.A. loan and they start to open their own business and they turn the lights on in the signs out front and they wait, and they wait some more and no one ever comes.

That scary, that’s why we’re here doing this, that’s why we’re here to help but you know that Dark Side of Dentistry, you can’t let that pull in your mind in terms of you know, looking at those things in a negative light you know, marketing is enhance to your business, the ones that sell for the most, we see it all the time, other ones that have the systems in place, they do a very good job.

Benjamin: You hit on a really interesting topic, which is that when you started a business, you’ve spent years thinking about how you’re going to run that business and the value that you can bring to people, and assume this is the way people are, but you’ve learned a trade; you haven’t learned a mindset. Especially you haven’t learned your customers and your clients’ mindset, there are different ways to persuade people because there are different ways people think about this and so, if you think you want that sign out in front to be bright yellow and that’s going to attract people because yellows are great color, or you may have no idea what colors it is that really attract people in convey trust and convey that you are somebody who will be a good dentist.

And a big part of marketing and selling is understanding what motivates people. And so, that’s something that we spend a lot of time on, again not a commercial but we are marketers and we spent a long time, a lot of effort getting to know clients, getting to know customers of dentists and what it is that motivates them.

Graig: Yeah, absolutely and I think that’s critical you know, in any business. You know, the practices that are just doing word of mouth stuff and just do it internal referrals and things like that, you know those businesses are extremely vulnerable you know, the worst number in all of business is the number one right, one way to get your patients or one way to do one particular thing, it is really risky because if that one thing goes away, you have nothing left, right?

So, the folks that come to us through who have only word of mouth referral type businesses, the first thing we tell them is “we have to inject your practice with some marketing because if we don’t, there’s a chance that if your referral rate drops ten percent, let’s say in the next quarter, you’re not going to make any money you might actually be in a very bad spot.”

We talk about corporate dentistry all the time; what if they suck up a portion of your new patients because you’re not marketing. You’re only doing word of mouth type of things, very vulnerable that is something that you know, and the same thing to go you know, there’s on the flip side of that you just never want to have one thing in your business.

Benjamin: It’s like being diversified in your portfolio.

Graig: Yeah, same thing, same thing and I think that’s important to understand is that the referral portion of your business is always critical, keeping existing patients coming in and doing the different things that they do but that is just one little teeny cognitive machine that needs to needs to run and I think the marketing and selling of that, and by the way, the great news is there are companies like ours that do it for you; you don’t often have to have a marketing degree and become an expert at it.

Nowadays, it’s great…there’s so many different options and so many different things that you don’t have to sweat the small stuff anymore, I think you just need to go out and do it and I think to your point that mindset shift of going from clinician to business person, “I am the marketer and seller of my practice so I can help more folks, including my community, my patients, my team, my family.” It is absolutely critical and you know I think to be honest with you, I think if you hear your colleagues or if your on god forbid on the forums, which I’ve done … any forums; don’t let that pollute your mindset, don’t come out and think, “I don’t want to be a marketer, I don’t sell anything, I’m not a sales person.”

It is not what it’s about, you know. We are more than willing to help with that too, so I think it’s important just to get that out here at first.

I want to help you put an action plan together to get your practice moving in the right direction. Do NOT be a stick in the mud, who refuses to change. This year can be that year for change. Let’s do it!

One word of WARNING: This action plan will disappear with out notice! So don’t delay.

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